At 8:00 am Monday morning, the East Contra Costa County Fire Protection District shuttered its Knightsen Station and downtown Brentwood station permanently.
The closure came nearly two weeks after the 53.04% of the public rejected the idea of a Benefit Assessment to help supplement the District with $4.2 million for a period of 5-years to ensure a five-station model to serve the district. A majority of the public would have paid around $100 annually.
The board voted 9-0 on May 4 to shutter the two stations.
Today’s closure came with ECCFPD Fire Chief Hugh Henderson and its Board of Directors out of sight. Supervisor Mary Piepho also did not show up after last week stating keeping unincorporated stations open were a priority.
Supervisor Mary Piepho and Brentwood Mayor Bob Taylor said they were both willing to come to the table to find supplemental funds to assist the District.
For now, the District will now be served by just 3-stations covering 249-square miles. The stations to remain open are Brentwood (Balfour), Discovery Bay (Bixler), and Oakley (O’Hara).
With the closures of the two stations, Vince Wells, President of the Professional Firefighters of Contra Costa County, called it a sad day and warned the community their response times and service will be impacted.
“It’s disappointing that the despite our efforts that this was not a priority in this community to keep their fire stations open,” said Wells.
He highlighted that it will be next to impossible to cover the District with just 3-stations covering 249-square miles.
“You can’t do it,” said Wells. “I believe this is a state of emergency for the citizens and the communities served by the ECCFPD. Your expectation of 9-1-1 services as far as expecting and anticipating service has changed. You should not expect a timely response and I think the community should be made aware of that. The reliance of 9-1-1 in East Contra Costa County is something that should be considered and the public should know that they need to be concerned about that. We are not going to be able to get to most of the calls in a timely manner especially if there is one major emergency going on in this community.”
With regards to aid from CONFIRE to ECCFPD, he thought the aid should be equal as he noted that CONFIRE is currently provided 3-engines to every 1-engine ECCFPD provides to CONFIRE. He expects that number to increase.
“There has to be some type of commitment from the powers that be to address this issue. It can’t be the norm to say we are going to have a 7-engine-to-1 relationship and everyone is going to be going on their day,” said Wells. “This is where consolidation makes sense but the financial imbalance comes into play. If we are really East County’s fire department and two Antioch engines are going to be always over here, we should really put them over here.”
Going forward, Wells highlighted there will be lots of discussions from service to layoffs to aid from CONFIRE.
The plan is the discussion between labor and management is we have a meeting on the 14th where we have to discuss the internal issues whether or not there are the layoffs of 4-firefighters. If they lay off, it will be effective in July,” said Wells. “We are also talking with CONFIRE and the Chief about what type of auto aid they are going to provide at a consistent level because obviously we are getting to a long summer with the drought situation, we know our resources are going to be all over the place and CONFIRE is committed to sending 2-units on automatic aid, but anything above and beyond the plan is that would be considered mutual aid.
Wells added that aid may be limited because of thin resources highlighting aid may not even be available if Antioch or Pittsburg is battling a fire. He said it’s going to be a challenge to provide aid because both Antioch and Pittsburg areas are busy stations.
One of the issues that will now face ECCFPD firefighters is the balance of workload as Brentwood and Oakley will run a majority of the calls whereas Discovery Bay Station 59 will run significantly less calls.
“We are also going to have to figure out the workload of the ECCFPD firefighters,” said Wells. “The report that was done showed the Brentwood an Oakley engines are run to death because rehab is a major issue now facing the District.”
Editors Note
Below are the workload report from the Stations in ECCFPD which wells was referring to.
Between May 2013-April 2014 the District had 9,124 wheels turned from the station.
- E52 – 1,869 (20.48%)
- E 54 – 1,695 (18.87%) – Station to be closed
- E59 – 970 (10.63%)
- E93 – 2,009 (22.01%)
- E94 – 1,061 (11.61%) – Station to be closed
13 comments
I’d like the see the voting results broken down by areas in the district. I’ve read that 38,529 ballots were sent out and that 9,495 were certifed as complete when they were mailed back in. If my math is correct, then only 25% of the ballots determined the outcome. I’d like to know what areas voted yes or no.
Christine,
“Only 25 percent…”
You do know that’s a better turn out than most elections get, right? With the way the results were trending, more returns would have likely turned a beer margin of rejection. Sorry to break it to you but this vote went exactly as predicted.
Editor,
Don’t you think you should be talking to “the powers that be” instead of Vince Wells of the union? Last time I checked they were in charge of…nothing. They provide labor for our fire stations. They don’t make decisions for ECCFPD or Con Fire.
I would think it would be prudent to interview the Fire district Board members, Fire Chief(s), City of Brentwood, City of Oakley and County leaders instead of just stating that they didn’t show up. I wouldn’t have expected any of them individually to “show up” as they alone cannot speak for their boards.
No one could steer clear of this outcome for 10 years. Today was no different.
Anonymous – the simple answer to why only Mr. Wells is because I interviewed who was down there.
Mr. Wells represents labor and over the last several weeks we have had many statements from meetings from both the Chief, the Board, the public and elected officials. I could have interviewed firefighters but since Mr. Wells represents them, he was the person we quoted. In hindsight, I guess we could have interviewed one of the firefighters set to be demoted and another set to be laid off… however, I think there will be time for that by July 1.
ECT thank you for being the only media in East County for raising awareness of this issue. Where is the other local media? NOWHERE to be found. Why is all the focus on Discovery Bay and Knightsen, Brentwood has the biggest population and should have two stations.
I am so sick of this fire board making poor decisions that impact the most families all because of an ISO rating scare.
Not only will their fire insurance premiums go up, what about ambulance response times and the sales of homes will go down. People want to buy homes that will be safe. Trilogy? Sales will drop.
Lets hurry up with this failure of district before people get really hurt by their games.
It’s all because the fire district put a person as the fire chief who has never been a battalion chief or captain a senior firefighter and that is Hugh Henderson he wasted money on 7 new fire engines which the 1990 Beck from station 58 worked perfectly fine so now in the end who suffers the citizens.
Donnie please check your facts, Chief Henderson was a Battalion Chief here in this district prior to being appointed the interim and now Fire Chief. He also has held the ranks of Firefighter, Engineer, and Captain while he was a member of the City of El Cerrito Fire Department.
And the “Wreck”, I mean the Beck it worked perfectly fine up until about 15 or 20 years ago when it started falling apart.
And while you’re checking your facts could you please remind me, was it you or your brother that was arrested for possession of stolen property that somehow ended up in your hands after being ripped off from closed firehouses?
Nevermind it was you, a factually undeniable truth.
https://eastcountytoday.net/brentwood-police-arrest-suspect-in-theft-of-emergency-responder-equipment/
http://www.localcrimenews.com/city-arrests/arrest-details/?arrest=7387136
And as far as wasting money on new fire engines…..they were due for replacement and they were paid for out of developer fees….non-recurring funds that can ONLY be used for things such as facilities and equipment, not for staffing. They spent the money on exactly what it was intended for.
I have to agree Hugh Henderson has been a mistake. Whose friend was he?
Thank you “Brentwood Mom” for being the poster child for how truly selfish citizens of Brentwood can be. This is a fire district, not here to serve the just the overbuilt population. The ISO rating. Is not a scare, it’s a reality. Just ask the people on Bethel Island and Morgan Territory. People in Knightsen and Discovery Bay pay more for fire service than you do so lose the entitlement attitude.
It’s bad enough that certain people in Brentwood are showing their true colors, now we have internal issues within the fire department itself. Firefighters turning on their chief is unacceptable. These are the initial symptoms of a department in trouble. The directors better get a handle on things, support the chief, and explain the function of the department is to provide the best coverage across the entire district.
There’s poison in that cool aid. There is a lot of resources being poured into making sure that smaller districts like this one don’t receive the funding needed to operate. CCT, COCOTAX, Claycord, Kris Hunt, Wendy Lack and a host of other carpet baggers have been preying on your sense of “rugged independence” and the mistrust of government. They all need their “croud out” pitch to gain traction for the state wide push to reduce current and future pensioners pay/benefits. They need you to believe that you civic workers are greedy and selfish and they need the informed to stay silent and at home on election day. So far it looks like it works. The amazing moral crime here is not just the sickening lack of accountability of those who won’t ever feel the effects of the diminished services but how the informed have refused to stand up for themselves and their community. The question now is how far will you let them take you? Who wants to live in a community ruled by the vocal minority or one so lacking selfidentity they can’t muster the civic services of much more than a 3rd world country.
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